Birthdays and Blanket Forts
by StruggleBusCentral
Summary: Natsu's birthday is during his finals week at school and he is far too tired to feel like celebrating. Luckily Gray always seems to know exactly what he needs. [College/University AU] [Nothing but silly fluff]


**A/N: This is something I quickly through together and didn't really take the time to edit, but I needed to get it posted today! Just short, sweet, and silly. Written for my beautiful Miss Miyu. Happy birthday, love!**

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Natsu released a huge sigh of relief as he pushed open the door to the science building. He'd spent the better part of the past two weeks holed up in the lab with Lucy and Levy running over their final research project for their chemistry final and it felt like it had been _years_ since he last saw daylight. But spending all that time busting their asses had finally paid off and they could take a break knowing that their research was done, their thesis had been submitted, and all they had left to do was their presentation at the end of the week and they were home free. So he waved goodbye to the girls and began the trek back to his dorm, dragging his feet the whole way.

It was the end of finals week for his last term in his undergraduate program and holy shit was he ready for it to end. Not to mention it was his _birthday_ today and he wasn't even able to do anything fun about it. A few of his friends had suggested they go out that night to celebrate, but by the time he crawled out of the lab and surfaced back into the real world, he was fucking exhausted. All he wanted to do was eat dinner, lay in bed, and talk to Gray.

Natsu and Gray had been together for years now and had been friends for even longer. They had grown up with each other in the same town, ended up at the same university, and been inseparable since they were kids. Unfortunately for Natsu, Gray was a year above him and when he graduated at the end of last year, he up and moved across the country to attend medical school. Which was great because Gray was smart. He was going to be a kick-ass doctor and Natsu was proud of him.

But it also sucked an unbearable amount because the last year apart had been absolute hell.

Between Gray's training, Natsu's long hours in the chemistry lab, both of their school work, and the whopping _3 hour time difference_ , making time for each other had been hard. They managed to make it work somehow, but it didn't change the fact that Natsu went from seeing his boyfriend everyday of his goddamn life to seeing him on holidays and over Skype. He already had a scholarship to start his masters degree at a university not far from Gray's school. At the end of the summer, he'd be back to constantly sharing his life with his favorite person.

The hard part of that was going to be making it through until then.

Natsu jumped out of his daze when he heard his phone start to go off and pulled it out of his pocket.

' _Speak of the devil_...'

"Hey."

" _Hey yourself_ ," Gray's voice on the other end of the line would always be comforting, no matter how many times he heard it. " _How'd it go? Did you guys finish your project?_ "

"Yeah," Natsu sighed and ran a hand absentmindedly through his hair while continuing to follow the sidewalk home. "Finally, thank fuck. We were in there so long I came out and I don't even know who I am anymore."

Gray snorted, " _Quit whining. You're so fucking overdramatic sometimes._ "

"Hey, it's my _birthday_ , bitch. So pretend that you love me and be nice for once." Natsu grinned as he listened to Gray's laughter coming through his phone. It was ridiculous how something so simple could make his heart feel so much lighter.

" _Yeah, yeah. Happy birthday and all that._ "

"You really know how to sweet talk a guy, princess."

" _Eh, shut up. You doing anything fun tonight?_ "

"No, not really. I just want to go home and sleep forever," he heard an odd rustling in the background. "What the hell are you doing over there?"

" _Just moving some furniture around_ ," Gray grunted in response. " _Don't you want to celebrate? It's your birthday and end of finals and everything._ "

Natsu groaned, "No, I'm freaking beat. Going anywhere sounds terrible."

" _Tch, whatever you say._ "

Natsu stuck his tongue out for a solid 5 second before he remembered that Gray couldn't see him over the phone.

A pause.

" _You're spitting your tongue out again like a child because you forgot I can't see you, aren't you?_ "

"Dammit! You know me too well."

" _Isn't that the truth. Listen, I gotta go, I have something I need to get done._ "

Natsu whined loudly, "What could possibly be more important than me right now?"

" _I'll call you later, okay?_ "

"Alright fine, talk to you soon," he griped and listened to the 'click' of the phones disconnecting.

Natsu sighed again, immediately going back to feeling exhausted and miserable.

' _Stupid fucking boyfriends and their stupid fucking school shit._ '

He finally reached his dorm and entered in the key code so he could head upstairs. His fingers didn't seem to want to work once he reached his room and it took him a lot longer than it should have to actually get his key to fit properly in the door knob to unlock his door. His roommate Sting was out for the night with his boyfriend, so Natsu assumed that when he entered his room it'd be dark and empty. He wasn't expecting to find the whole room lit up with the Christmas lights they'd been too lazy to take down and what appeared to be a giant mass of blankets piled over beds and chairs in the center of the room.

"What the fuck...?"

He didn't get a chance to investigate further because out from the middle of the blanket fort crawled none other than Gray Fullbuster himself.

"Oh hey, I wasn't sure how long you were gonna be." He smiled up at Natsu as if his sudden appearance wasn't completely out of the ordinary.

"I...you...you're...and...what?"

Gray chuckled and beckoned him to join him on the floor. Natsu dropped his bag heavily on the ground before tackling Gray, knocking the other flat on his back and then collapsing on top of him.

"Natsu," Gray wheezed underneath him, "Can't breath."

Natsu loosened his grip but only slightly. He stared down at his boyfriend in awe. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I came to see you, stupid."

"What about your finals? And work?"

Gray shrugged as much as he could with Natsu clinging to him, "Eh, I finished my work early and conned Lyon into taking my shift tomorrow."

"Why?"

Gray stared at him in disbelief, "Did all the chemicals from your experiments finally burn out the few remaining brain cells you had left?" He reached his hand up and gently brushed Natsu's bangs back. "It's your birthday, idiot." When he smiled it was soft and sweet in a way he only ever let Natsu see, "What could possibly be more important than you?"

Natsu was absolutely _not_ going to cry.

"So," he sniffled trying desperately to keep his eyes dry, "what the hell is all this?"

"It's a blanket fort. Duh."

Natsu's heart felt too big for his chest. It was sort of a weird tradition they'd started as kids. Whenever one of them was stressed or hurt or upset they'd construct ridiculously sized blanket forts in each other's rooms and hide under them together, safe and sound from the rest of the world. Gray made Natsu one when he was young and he was devastated that his cat Happy ran away. Natsu snuck in through Gray's window and constructed a freaking blanket _castle_ when he was eight and held a sobbing Gray while he cried in the weeks after his parent's deaths. They did it after Natsu found out his first girlfriend was cheating on him in middle school. When Gray's foster sister, Ultear, went missing. Every time Natsu had to listen to his brother, Zeref and his dad having shouting matches. Even a couple times when they were at university together and were particularly overworked or feeling down they'd combined efforts and turned their dorms into blanket cities. It was a silly thing, but it was theirs. Their self-made safe haven for each other and no one else.

The pink-haired boy looked around in amazement. Gray really had outdone himself. The whole room seemed to be turned into a cave of quilts and sheets and right underneath it all was a huge nest of blankets and pillows complete with a lap top, DVDs and some cartons of Chinese food.

"I love you so fucking much," he told Gray and the other boy lifted his head enough for their lips to meet briefly.

"I love you, too."

The two boys ate their dinner, set up a movie to play in the background, and curled up tightly around each other. And right as Natsu's eyes were growing heavy with sleep, he felt Gray press a kiss to the top of his head. Letting out a whine, he tugged on his boyfriend's arm until he heard quiet laughter and felt Gray pulling him in closer. Then he quietly put his lips to Natsu's ear and murmured, "Happy birthday, dork."

Natsu tried to mumble a thank you in response, but it just came out as happy, sleepy nonsense. Oh well, it didn't really matter. Gray would know what he meant.

He always did.


End file.
